4 Steps to Protect Your Rights After a Prescription Medication Error

1. The single most important thing to do is to get the necessary medical care. When you see your physician, make sure that he or she is aware that you have been taking medication that was not appropriate for you. This information will help your doctor give you better quality medical care and will help him or her establish that your injury or illness was caused by the prescription error.

2. Promptly notify the pharmacy of the error. This will often result in an internal investigation that may help establish exactly what occurred to cause your error and may result in a fast resolution of your case. Also, promptly notifying the pharmacy may help deflect suspicion about the honesty and legitimacy of your claim. While you should notify them of the error, do not give a recorded statement over the phone and do not provide any kind of a written statement to the pharmacy or their insurer. This includes things such as customer complaint forms, incident reports, and the like. If you do complete a written form, demand a copy to ensure that yours is not tampered with.

3. Safeguard any physical evidence. This includes the prescription slip or discharge instructions from your health care providers, register receipts from the pharmacy, the prescription bottle, any remaining medication, and any packaging or instruction sheets. This is not only powerful evidence of the negligence of the pharmacy, but their loss or destruction by you after the error was discovered, or after legal proceedings have begun, can seriously damage your case. Once you have hired an attorney, you should provide these items to your attorney for safekeeping.

4. You should promptly retain legal counsel. Attorneys experienced in these kinds of cases are able to quickly pinpoint the areas of error by the pharmacy and often have the pharmacies internal policies and procedures in their possession from other cases. Moreover, they will often understand or quickly and effectively research the nature of the injury or illness caused by the medication error and the fair settlement value of your case. In the event that the case cannot be settled for a fair figure, skilled trial attorneys are needed to protect your interests against the lawyers for the pharmacy and their insurers.